Tajikistan: pastor charged
Ten weeks after
the National Security
Committee
(NSC) secret police arrested
Protestant pastor Bakhrom Kholmatov in
the northern city of Khujand, his criminal
case was handed to Khujand City Court on
22 June for trial.
No date appears to have been set for the trial
to begin. Officials refuse to reveal what charges
the pastor is facing. ‘We have not yet decided
who will lead the case or when we will hear it,
since it only arrived today,’ Judge Sharifzoda
said. She declined to discuss the case or say
what the charges are against the pastor.
Kazakhstan: fines
Three churches in Kazakhstan have been
fined by police this year, without a court
hearing, for meeting for worship without
state permission, it emerged in July.
Police acquired the power in January 2015.
Prosecutors subsequently annulled one of the
fines. Baptists and human rights defenders
are concerned that the new state tactic of
summary police fines, to punish the exercise
of freedom of religion or belief, might be used more widely.